New Delhi, October 31: The controversy surrounding the remodelling and renaming of the Lalita Kala Thoranam has ended.
Congress MP T Subbirami Reddy, who offered to donate Rs 10 crore for construction of a closed auditorium (in place of the existing open air theatre) provided it is named after the late Rajiv Gandhi has dropped the proposal.
“I proposed to take up a good cause. But objections have come from various quarters. More than the renaming, many did not want the present ambience to be disturbed by building a closed auditorium. Therefore, I have sent a letter to chief minister K Rosaiah urging him to cancel the GO issued in this regard,” Reddy said at a news conference.
The main Opposition Telugu Desam led a series of protests over the proposal to rename the auditorium built during the regime of its founder, NT Rama Rao. Quite a few cultural organisations too felt it would not be a good idea to destroy the open air auditorium to pave the way for a closed one.
Though Reddy scoffed when asked if his U-turn has anything to do with Delhi not being happy over renaming proposal turning controversial, sources indicated that Congress leaders were not comfortable with the proposal. In fact, just a fortnight ago, communication has been sent out to all Central and state departments that due care has to be taken before naming any scheme/projects after Indira Gandhi or Rajiv Gandhi.
Subbirami Reddy maintained that he was still willing to construct an auditorium in the capital for cultural activities if the state government allotted him land for the purpose.
He was visibly annoyed when a reporter sought to know why he had imposed a condition that the auditorium should be named after Rajiv Gandhi if he donated the money.
“Are you a Telugu Desam man?” he shot back at the scribe, pointing out that it was a common practice to name any project after the donor or the person of his/her choice.
–Agencies